


we can be heroes

by missmeparadox



Series: teenage disasters [5]
Category: Smosh
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Friendship/Love, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Polyamory Negotiations, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-02 02:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12717627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmeparadox/pseuds/missmeparadox
Summary: damien hasn't felt as close to the sun in his entire life until the summer before senior year.but shayne moves in next door, and suddenly his new world has been knocked out of orbit.





	1. he's the sun

the open water of quarry reflects nearly every single star that damien can find from his seat on the rocks. the headlights from joven's car and the distant glow of city smog still blur the edges of the night sky, but there's easily millions visible tonight.

he's been running with them- the collective them of these brilliant people he calls his friends, his best friends- for the whole summer. sometimes, that's all it feels like they do is run. darting from place to place across their boneyard of a town in a storm of colors and laughter has become second nature. even the looming beginning of the next schoolyear in a few weeks hasn't been enough to shock damien back under his parent's thumb. he hadn't touched his homework since the night mari and wes led him out of the convenience store and into their lives.

not that he's complaining, of course.

it's the thrill of it that must make it all so addicting. there can't be any other reason for it; the warm squeeze of someone's hand in his when a cashier so much as looks at him twice, mari (or if he's even luckier, wes) pressing their wine stain lips to his, laughing so hard that his sides split feels so new that he's amazed that he's never felt this way before, that he lived this long without it.

the thought of all of this melting into the sidewalk like paint makes something in his gut twist, like his soul would just float right out of him and join the stars that sohinki loves to paint so much.

* * *

 

he meets shayne on a saturday.

well, they all do. he's sitting in their usual booth with two other girls, one who could be his sister. damien notices his laugh first, how loud and unapologetic it is.

"assholes," lasercorn snorts. no matter, flitz is already pulling together two tables with the help of boze. the underpaid cashier seems bothered, but not inclined to stop them.

damien spends lunch staring at the back of the boy's head, and registers how he'd like to walk over and smooth the mess of blond strands from their current straw-like arrangement. when the girl with dark hair winks at him, he blinks twice before remembering to look away.

funnily enough, shayne moves in next door. it speaks to how little damien is home that he doesn't realize this until he spots shayne through his own window. their bedrooms must be only feet apart, shayne's nearly level with his own.

he starts to make a conscious effort to change in the bathroom, lest he offer some stranger a private show of him wriggling into his trunks before going to wes' house. to his initial terror, shayne doesn't seem to get the memo, and frequently walks past the window in his boxers (or less) to grab something from the other side of the room.

like anything else, the situation loses novelty, and damien makes a mental note to not face the window when he sleeps in his own bed. he only gets a view of whatever game the topp brothers are playing that evening, and the shouting match that will come with it. he ignores the underwear parades. life moves on.

one morning in late july, shayne introduces himself in the strip of grass between their driveways while damien waits for a ride from joven.

"my dad said you're a senior this year too, right?" he speaks amicably, casually.

"yeah," damien nods, "maybe i'll see you around."

he hopes not. shayne looks like the kind of person to play sports and thump him hard on the back and shove sohinki into a locker. when joven rolls up, boze in tow, damien waves goodbye before telling them to hightail it out of there.

"he's cute," boze starts innocently.

"i guess," damien says.

"you should invite him out," she nudges him in the ribs, "or is he not cool?"

damien opens his mouth to answer, but nothing comes out, and she lets him remain silent as the sky for the rest of the ride.

 

 

 


	2. the moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> life is hard and love is hard but baby, this ain't love.

The neighbors get a pool, and Shayne's time in a shirt dwindles considerably.

Damien consciously avoids this, makes an effort to stretch summer like a string of bubblegum and spend all of his time with whoever happens to be driving past his house that day.

He's less confused now, and it shows. Mari had laughed in his face the first time he balked at Sohinki kissing David firmly on the mouth during movie night, long before the explanations of circles and relationships and how much love one heart can handle (the answer for her: all of it). He's not sure exactly where the lines for everyone are drawn, but Wes and Mari seem to have plucked him out of the fray.

That's why he tells them about Shayne first.

"Is he cute?" Mari asks him.

"He's funny," Damien tells them both, "he watches SNL and Mad TV, I can see it sometimes through my window."

"You can see through his window?" Wes raises his eyebrows so high that they disappear behind his bangs.

"Are you mad?" Damien asks.

Mari sucks on her bendy straw and ponders the question herself. Wes is already shaking his head, as if predicting how much shit she's prepared to put him through for the sake of it, and rubbing Damien's knuckles with his thumb.

"As long as you think he's cool," Mari says lowly, casting conspiratory glances around the diner, "then we're happy for you. Just, you know, don't drop us for the newest model."

He would never and she knows, she knows, but the furrow in his brow confirms that. Their boy would follow them off of the world.

He still hasn't spoken more than ten words to Shayne, but that's not to say that they don't talk. He stops Damien in the mornings whenever he grabs the newspaper to talk about the newest episode of some TV show. Shayne has the easiest laugh that Damien's ever heard, and it's a new game to play, to see how many times he can hear it in those meetings before the sun is up.

"You remind me of my brother," Shayne tells him on Thursday, "except he doesn't get the stuff that you do. He's not that funny." He smiles like it's all that easy. His smile cracks his face into two halves, and crinkles the corners of his soft eyes.

Damien knows he must be staring.

"You think I'm funny." He says, because it's not a question so much as a sigh of relief.

"I think you're great," Shayne tells him, and with a wave and a 'later', he's turning to walk back up the sidewalk and out of the thick morning heat.

Boze skates up to Damien's less than an hour later after his urgent phone call to call him a "little baby bitch" and eat his stash of zebra cakes. Of the people to sit with during a panic attack, she's still the best, because she's willing to sit in total silence while he stares at his sneakers and then force him to follow her on his bike to the quarry when he's spent long enough worrying his fingernails to the skin.

It's not unusual for them to spend the afternoon here, but to do so alone is. The ride is longer without the comforts of the minivan and cold drinks from the gas station. Still, the yawning abyss of the lake below is cool in the heat of the day, and they waste no time stripping down to their socks and underwear to dive from the rocks.

"Bring him here," Boze tells him, "maybe he'll like it."

"What if he's not like us?"

"Then how are you going to hang out with him anyway?"

She's right, of course. Damien pictures Shayne's broad shoulders and laugh on the banks of the quarry, and the knot in his stomach tightens.

Boze shoves him off of the rock and into the lake, and he lets her.

 

 


	3. the summer wind,

It’s the first week of August when Shayne and Boze meet, purely by accident.

 

She and Damien are eating popsicles on the roof, legs dangling in the pressing humidity, when another voice snaps them out of their reverie.

 

“Hey Dames!” Shayne smiles like a golden retriever. He’s leaning so far out of his window that he may very well tumble out of it into the shrubbery below. “You guys wanna go swimming?”

 

Damien casts Boze a look that says _it’s up to you._ She still hasn’t learned to swim, despite weeks of coaching by their party and endless trips to the quarry. More often than not, she sits on the rocks, content to watch.

 

“We’ll be over in five,” she says with her parent-charmer smile. When Damien asks her, quite plainly, what the hell she thinks she’s doing, he gets a shrug in response before being kicked out of his own room for her to change.

 

Shayne’s house isn’t quiet. Daymien isn’t sure what exactly he expected, but there are echoing voices reverberating from every wall that must belong to the rest of Shayne’s family that he had only seen fragments of over the past two months. The backyard is mowed and neat, with a sparkling pool that smells sharply of chlorine.

 

“Mom didn’t want to get another pool, cause I drowned when I was little,” Shayne speaks to fill their silence, “but I guess my brother’s and I annoyed her enough with all of the noise in the house.”

 

“How deep is it?” Boze asks.

 

“Like, six foot at the deepest, four at the shallow end,” Shayne responded, shucking off his shirt and sandals. When the other two don’t follow suit, he pauses. “Is that okay?”

 

Damien realizes with an exchanged glance with Boze that she has no intention of letting a practical stranger in on one of her more embarrassing life details, and steps in.

 

“Could we swim somewhere else? It’s only a few blocks from here, and you probably haven’t seen much of the neighborhood yet, right?” He pitches, sounding much more confident than he feels.

 

“I’m down, but I don’t have a bike,” Shayne shrugs.

 

“Take mine,” Boze supplies him easily, “as long as you don’t mind me on the bars.” Shayne’s grin seems to be all the answer they need, and their group abandons the humming chatter of the Topp’s house for the pressing quiet of the street.

 

They make a gorgeous picture, with Shayne pedaling in the blistering heat and Boze balanced in front of him. Damien knows he’s staring, but he’s bringing up the rear and can’t really find it in him to be embarrassed at the moment. His own hair is sticking to his forehead with sweat, the same that has him feeling lightheaded and blinking sunspots from his vision as they round the curbs of the outer edges of their suburb. Boze’s ponytail bounces when they cross the tracks.

 

Their laughter cracks across the barren dirt.

 

When they pull to the wide lip of the quarry bank, Shayne lets out a low whistle.

 

“You ever jump off of that?” He gestures to the cliff face looming above them.

 

“Damien does,” Boze says, nonchalant. She winks to him when Shayne is turned to appreciate the view, and Damien has never loved her more than in that moment.

 

Huh. That’s something to think about.

  
  
  



	4. and what am i,

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> my my, how can i resist you?

At their next group sleepover, Boze kisses him on the corner of his mouth while their group watches a laughable imitation of a slasher flick. Her feet are tucked into his lap, and she’s nestled solidly in Mari’s lap, and he may have even missed the brush of lips if he weren’t turned her way when she leaned in. 

 

Six minutes later, Damien’s in the kitchen, furiously breathing into his hands as Lasercorn idly watches. he’s gnawing on a piece of caramel apple, seemingly critiquing his panic attack technique. 

 

“So like,” Lasercorn waves to Damien’s form with his free hand, “what’s up with all of this?”

 

“I think i’m in love with two people.” He says. 

 

Lasercorn raises a single eyebrow. Laughter booms from the living room. “Isn’t a little late for that?”

 

“No, like” Damien coughs around the words, “I don’t know if they’re going to be cool with it.”

 

“Did you talk to them about it?”

 

Damien casts him a withering look. With a loud thump, Lasercorn hops up onto the counter next to where Damien stands and slings an arm over his shoulder, already apparently balls-deep in whatever semblance of a protective instinct he seems to be demonstrating lately. 

 

“Look, bud,” he starts, voice low and fruity with borrowed wine, “it’s okay. I know this is new and weird and whatever we do here isn’t, like, what you’re used to hearing about, but you’re fine. Talking helps. None of us would be here if Mari hadn’t called me a bitch for ignoring whatever was going on when we started this with Sohin. You just have to like,” He gestures vaguely, “be you. Whatever you feels like.”

 

Damien stands, for once that evening, very still. “That was actually really profound, man.”

 

“I’m a goddamn genius, shithead,” Lasercorn fires back with a wide grin. 

 

Later, when he volunteers to walk Boze home, they travel through the streets in peaceful silence. If she notices his pointed stare shifting between the top of her head and the street sign, she doesn’t bring it up. The question hangs heavy in the air between them.

 

“Hey,” He starts.

 

“Yep?”

 

Damien swallows roughly. “What do you think of Shayne?”

Boze tilts her head and purses her lips. Damien proceeds to feel his heart skyrocket from his throat straight to his gut.

 

“I know what you see in him,” she decides, finally, “he’s good for you.”

 

“So are you,” he says in a rush. The tension between them seems to slacken like a plucked string when she cranes her neck to look him in the eyes. For a long while, beneath the single spotlight of a streetlight against the sidewalk, she gives him a fond gaze usually reserved for small animals or her dog. 

 

“Yeah,” She says simply, “I guess so.”

 

They don’t kiss or hold hands (thankfully, Damien thinks, because his own are so sweaty that her hand may just slip out of his grip) but they do spend the rest of the walk home in companionable silence. When they reach the fork in the road that splits between the routes towards each of their houses, he finally rubs his palms furiously on his jeans and extends his hand. A question, an offering.

 

Grinning ear-to-ear, Boze links her fingers with his and tugs him down the sidewalk. Her hair dances around her shoulders and her thin fingers twist around his, and it occurs to Damien that he hasn’t held hands with a girl since middle school, and this blows that experience out of the water. 

 

When the pair pass Shayne’s house, all of the lights but two are off. Damien’s is similarly silent, his parents having long gone to bed downstairs, dead to the fumbling and giggly footfalls of Boze chasing Damien up the hallway into his bedroom. 

 

When he shuts the door behind him, three thoughts race through Damien’s head at once; There is a girl in his room, his blinds are drawn open, and Shayne is blinking back at them through his window. 

  
  



	5. but many green things.

air returns to Damien’s lungs gradually, like sand filling an hourglass. framed between his blue curtains, Shayne is blinking owlishly at the two of them. Boze swallows heavily.

 

“So like,” Shayne starts, “Whats up?”

 

“We’re not,” Boze says, while Damien rushes to say the same. the statement would be more reassuring if they weren’t standing so close together, knuckles brushing with each harsh exhale.

 

“Sorry,” Shayne holds his hands up, “I’ll leave you to it.” without a goodbye, he draws the curtains to erect a barrier between their two worlds with a harsh snap.

 

before Boze can circle his wrist with her thin fingers, Damien charges forward. he bounces once onto the bed as leverage, scrambled through the window and onto the ledge that places him mere feet from Shayne’s own bedroom. behind him, Boze is whispering furiously, but not quite loud enough to drown out the roaring in his ears.

 

he dives through the curtains.

 

Damien collides with Shayne like a bowling ball, or an asteroid. they both topple to the floor in a heap of limbs. when Damien orients himself, he looks up to see Boze framed in the doorway like a stained glass angel. Shayne is watching her too, he knows it, and the part of his brain that screams to be jealous is smothered by a pang of longing.

 

“what the fuck,” Shayne wheezed.

 

“we aren’t dating,” Damien explained. He rocks back onto his heels and offered Shayne his hand. it was strong and soft, like Boze’s expression as she watched them.

 

“yeah,” she said, “unless you want in.”

 

Shayne froze. Damien held himself still, ready to run in case Shayne wasn’t quite as cool as he had thought.

 

“what do you mean?” Shayne asked.

 

“we like you?” Damien suggested. he didn’t have to see Boze’s eye roll to know it was there. her audible scoff that followed only confirmed her displeasure with how Damien began to intently focus on his shoelaces rather than Shayne's face. she sat heavily onto the floor between them, crossed her legs, and began to speak. 

 

“we both like you. a lot,” Boze continued, “and it would be cool if you felt the same way. we could like. go to the mall.”

 

Shayne frowned. “Damien hates the mall.”

 

Boze threw her arms up in anguish. “then we can go somewhere else! we just want to go with you, alright?”

 

Shayne’s eyes flicked between the two of them, from Boze to the way his legs tangled with Damien’s on the beige carpet. for a long moment, the only sound in the house was the low rumble of a distant washing machine.

 

“okay,” Shayne nodded.

 

Damien cast a look at Boze. “okay?”

 

Shayne grinned, slow and easy like it was splitting his face in two. “i didn’t know that was an option.”

 

he looks between the two of them, the collective them that Damien realizes they are on the precipice of becoming. he pictures sleepovers and bike rides, trips to the movies and to the railroad tracks.he imagines holding two hands at once and balks. there’s a feeling brewing deep in his gut like he may throw up, but when he swallows air to counter it, it tastes more like freedom. like hope.

 

“boy,” Boze smiles right back, “there’s probably all kinds of things we know that you never did,” she nudged Damien hard in the side and jerks her head in the direction of his feet. Shayne has one tanned hand resting gently on his ankle. the physical contact alone makes Damien feel like he’s about to fall from space.

 

Shayne smiled his apple pie, hideous laugh, red-in-the face scared smile, “guess you should teach me.”

 

it’s a race for who clambers to land a kiss on him first, but Damien’s not quite sure he would call himself the loser.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for sticking around! this took longer than initially planned, but i'm very proud of it. poem for the title is a gem by N. Howard, who graciously offered me permission to use it!

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for checking me out y'all! big plans for this one, and i really hope you enjoy. if you do, consider leaving me a tip at ko-fi.com/indiebeara . even if you can't, thanks so much for reading.


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